Jane Pauley Back on NBC, Yearned for 'Cool, Steady Hand' of 'Exceptional' Obama

the Steven P.J. Wood Senior Fellow and Vice President for Research and Publications

In 2008, just four years after leaving NBC News, Jane Pauley gave the
maximum allowed donation to Barack Obama ($2,300) and campaigned for him
in her native Indiana where she proclaimed "I want to see the cool,
steady hand of Barack Obama on that Bible on Inauguration Day" and
predicted Obama will be "an exceptional" President, enthusing: "I so
look forward to it!"

On Tuesday morning (March 9) Pauley
reappeared on the Today show, which she co-hosted from 1976 to 1989
before spending more than a decade with Dateline NBC, as the narrator of
a new monthly segment produced by the liberal AARP, "Your
Life Calling Today," about those 50-plus reinventing themselves.
"We are welcoming back a very, underline 'very' good friend and familiar
face around here, Jane Pauley," Matt Lauer announced, explaining "she's
been working with AARP which has produced and sponsored a new series of
reports for us." Her first report looked at a woman who "left a
lucrative career so she would have more time to knit socks."

Not
exactly hard-hitting political reporting, but it gives me a hook to
share some 2008 video of Pauley praising Obama as she made appearances
on his behalf. "Pauley called the last eight years a mistake and says
America must make the right choice come election day," WISH-TV channel 8
reporter Phil Sanchez related on the Indianapolis CBS affiliate's
Sunday, September 21, 2008 newscast. Just over a month later, following
an event in Bloomington, sporting an Obama button she told Indiana
University's public TV station, WTIU:

I think the 21st century really hasn't started yet for this
country. We have not gotten off to a good start and the rest of the
world hasn't been waiting. So we, we can not only get it right this time
but I kind of agree with Colin Powell that not only Barack Obama will
be a good President he'll be an exceptional one and I so look forward
to it!

Pauley, who worked for the Indiana State
Democratic Committee in the mid-1970s before jumping to NBC News,
appreciated the freedom to express her political views, as if they never
came through during her NBC years:

Well this is, this is
new for me because I was in television news for 30 years and, and you
know I would not have been approved of going public with my particular
political position. That was between me and the voting booth. But I
haven't been with NBC for three-and-a-half years and I am free to make a
contribution and I hope I can make a contribution here in Indiana.

Federal employees and military personnel can donate to the Media Research Center through the Combined Federal Campaign or CFC. To donate to the MRC, use CFC #12489. Visit the CFC website for more information about giving opportunities in your workplace.